1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to game apparatus and method; and more particularly to game apparatus and method employing macroscopic permanent magnets on a playing surface and a magnetic manipulator that is disposed below the magnets and below the playing surface.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,987,852 and 2,940,216 to Koch, 3,883,988 to Fields, and 2,528,938 to Wolf appear to represent the state of the art in games that use permanent magnets in a playing region and magnetic manipulators that move the permanent magnets.
Koch '852 uses a manipulator that is positioned substantially at the playing surface--that is, laterally adjacent to the individual magnets on the surface. At least some of his individual magnets on the surface must carry flanges or skirts that allow one magnet to, in effect, trip over the edge of a second and thereby flip over onto the top of the second. This effect is obtained as follows.
In Koch '852 the flange or skirt is well below the center of gravity of the attached magnet. Thus when the first, flanged magnet and a second magnet are brought forcibly together the flange stops the bottoms of the two magnets from moving together--but the centers of gravity of the two magnets tend to continue moving together.
The result is relative rotation of one or both magnets about the edge of the flange. In short, Koch uses the force developed between the manipulator and one of the permanent magnets as a means of generating mechanical torque, which catapults one of the magnets onto the other. This effect may be entertaining, but it requires relatively cumbersome attachments to at least some of the magnets; and as will be seen it is relatively primitive.
Koch '216 too uses a manipulator that is positioned at the playing-surface level--laterally adjacent to the independent magnets on the surface--and merely exploits the force between the manipulator and the independent magnets to develop torque mechanically.
Here the independent magnets are made with a convex bottom section, and the manipulator is held with its field vector at a slight angle to that of one of the independent magnets. Upon repulsion by the adjacent manipulator, the independent magnet rocks away from the manipulator in a direction determined by the angle between the field vectors--and is thereby induced to spin about, roughly, its own axis. Like the '852 patent, its principle is thus a relatively primitive mechanical effect.
The patent of Wolf even more simply uses ordinary linear repulsion between a bar-magnet manipulator and bar magnets mounted horizontally on wheeled figurines to move the figurines in play on a board. Thus for example the figurines may be made to represent miniature football players on a miniature football field, and through proximity of the manipulator the figurines are driven on the "field" in a simulated miniature game of football.
The Fields patent is of a different sort. It uses a large multiplicity of miniature or nearly microscopic permanent magnets. These may be small pieces of magnetic recording tape, or small magnetic ring-core memory elements, or the like--constrained in a shallow box by a transparent cover. When a bar magnet is held near, these multiple tiny magnets jump from place to place and form patterns that may be visually entertaining. The patterns are enhanced by making the individual magnets, or different facets of individual magnets, different colors.
The individual magnetic pieces are typically under 0.1 inch square and a few thousandths of an inch thick, when pieces of recording tape are used; or even much smaller (under 0.02 inch diameter by 0.004 inch height) when ring cores are used. In either event, several hundred such particles are placed into the box, and as will be apparent they are treated essentially as a group that forms a medium, rather than as individual macroscopic articles.
Other patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,940,135 to Cohen, 3,033,573 to Castle, or 417,931 to Miatt are of less interest. They use merely passive metallic pieces that are attracted by a magnet and thereby moved about in a playing region.